Final Project: iGoogle

For my final project, I chose to do a “Remix” project, by redesigning the Apple Macbook website according to the guidelines set forth by Google’s Material design.

The main reason I chose this project, is because for the past year or so, I have been working on a startup, called Sophire. One thing I have been trying to achieve with Sophire is designing a particular aesthetic and design that is unique to Sophire, so that the brand recognition of the startup extends beyond just a logo and name. Two companies who I think have achieved this the best are Apple and Google. Both of these companies have a particular and unique design philosophy that is unique to the brand. My favorite, of course, is Google, which has even defined and named their design style as “Material Design”.

For this project, I chose to remix Apple’s Macbook website, redesigning it using material design. The first thing I did was research on the unique aspects of each website, noting what made them similar and unique. Then, after creating a wireframe, I created several iterations and drafts, finally arriving at a completed work.

Apple vs. Google

The Apple website is all about minimalism. Regarding the three primary elements of design, color, text, and graphics. Using the Macbook page as a case study, there is a lot of white space between elements, very little color except the occasional blue “read more” links – otherwise, the page is primarily limited to shades of white, grey, and black. Another noticeable feature is that the Macbook page features more paragraph-style centered text. Lastly, the graphics on the Apple website all feature

On the other hand, Google seems to be the complete opposite. Unlike Apple, Google has a particular set of rules, guidelines, and practices, known as “Material Design”. The largest contrast between Google’s material design, and Apple’s own aesthetic, is the use of color. Material design uses color extensively, with bright, cheerful hues of purple, blue, red, and green, among others. Furthermore, there are several features

iGoogle: Apple Materially Designed:

The iGoogle page features content directly from the Macbook website. All of the text, information, and most of the information, are from the Apple website. However, the iGoogle logo, some of the background images, and the material design logos, are not a part of the Apple website. Although these elements are not a part of the original website, I felt that a materially designed page would be very incomplete without them. For example, the Apple website features only images of the Macbook, from various perspectives, whereas the Google Chromebook website has images of a different style, usually with a lot more color, and are often photographs of people using Chromebooks. Other features of the iGoogle page include shadows, specific color from the material design palette, colorful banners, left and right aligned images and text, the use of Roboto font, and materially designed logos. To compare some images of the Apple & Google websites, with iGoogle, please visit igoogle.rashidaziz.com/about